Wingspan is a 2019 board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games.
Wingspan supports 1 to 5 players and is a card-based engine-builder where the engine parts happen to be birds. Birds that you, the player, are trying to attract to your wildlife preserve. May the best ornithologist win.
Is it fun?
Yes. Somehow. I can’t wait to play it again. It’s got great decision points. It actually makes me excited to look for birds in the wild that share my favorite mechanics. I downloaded bird apps after playing this. I’m not kidding.
Apps. Not bird games. BIRD APPS. I’m that person now and I have no regrets.
Defiantly so. Everytime I think about this game from a distance, I struggle with this question. The concept does not immediately hook me, it feels like chance plays too strong a role, and the gameplay borders on cluttered.
However, once I’m at the table, this game just sucks me in and as soon as it’s done, I wonder when I get to play it again. Everything seems to come together on it just right to make it an engrossing and thoroughly pleasant experience.
Do the components/aesthetics improve the experience?
The art is exceptional. The quality of components is next-level compared to a lot of the flimsy cardboard and plastic we’ve seen in a lot of other games. Even AAA board games that should be doing better.
I will never tire of handling egg tokens.
Absolutely. For my money, Wingspan may have set the new standard for excellent components. The boards and tokens are solid enough, the egg tokens are beautiful and tactilely pleasing, and the artwork is all very pretty. The real star for me, though, is the cardstock for the birds–it is of the caliber you’d sooner expect on a wedding invitation, and it, fitting perfectly with the game’s overall aesthetic, is just so damn pleasant.
Does playing the game create an immersive experience?
Yes. Thom’s wrong about this. Look, any theme will break down at logical extremes, but this is a game that’s trying to draw you in with its eggs and its birds and its birdhouse dice tower.
The whole game is about carefully cultivating your bird preserve. We’re not harvesting eggs, we’re hatching them.
I don’t need to shear the sheep by hand in Catan to appreciate I’m using their wool as a resource. I get what he’s saying: with so much immersion, this is where it falters. But in my opinion, it’s a nitpick. And it could be a lot worse
This is where Wingspan falters most for me. Nominally the player is taking up the mantle of a bird watcher, conservationist, or general bird enthusiast, trying to attract birds to your preserve. Gathering the right variety of food to attract a particular species makes sense, and having a limited and shifting supply of what birds are presently available is fine. Why, though, are we harvesting and spending the eggs laid in our preserve as a currency to attract more birds?
Additionally, while some of the bird powers make sense with the birds they’re on (e.g. the large predatory birds hunting other birds), others feel more arbitrary (e.g. a bird that draws you extra bonus cards). I freely admit that there may be science behind these mechanics that I am simply unaware of, but to my layman’s brain the connection falters a bit here and damages my sense of immersion.
How often does a player make meaningful choices?
Every turn is essentially a string of meaningful choices. Every choice propels the game forward, and you are not so at the mercy of randomness that you feel as though your decisions have almost no impact. There’s a good bit of randomness, but it doesn’t feel like the randomness is limiting you.
This isn’t a game of Tsuro. You’re not going to fly blindly into a wall at the last second. Yes, the pace picks up after a couple of rounds, but the game gives you time to breathe. You’re almost never locked into a strategy you’re not excited about.
There are pretty strong elements of chance running throughout this game. What food is available to gather is on dice rolled into a neat, little, bird-house tower; there is a limited and random supply of birds available at any given time; and the individual bonus cards you get at the start of the game are random. These three random elements seem like they would be enough to derail any sense of control or strategy that a player might have, yet they don’t. They pop up like hurdles to clear with careful planning, rather than obstructions that stop you in your tracks. Every game of Wingspan that I’ve played, even if I feel like I’ve had a rough start, I’ve been able to pivot where necessary and feel accomplished at the end of the game.
Does the level of player interaction encourage continual engagement?
For a tableau-building game there’s a non-zero amount of interaction that necessitates paying attention to one’s opponent. You take the turns one at a time, but it’s not even Race for the Galaxy levels of simul-play where your turn is directly affected by your opponents’ turns.
At most what you can do will changed based on who has gotten to your desired resources first. Or, maybe, someone’s bird triggered a power for the board.
It’s not quite turn-based solitaire, but this is where I think the game has the strongest lack. And I mean, I’m still going on to rate it pretty highly. I love this game.
BUT I COULD LOVE IT MORE.
I have to ding Wingspan here as well, though surprisingly not as heavily as I thought I might. Each player is taking their turns in order, and largely on their own. There are a very small number of birds with powers that trigger when another player takes a particular action, and you may find yourself trying to will other players not to take that berry or Owl (because Owls are dope) you were going to grab on your next turn. Otherwise, though, players do not really interact.
That being said, even at higher player counts, I found myself still engaged between my turns. Part of that is definitely attention to my own board–planning out my next couple of moves, agonizing over the feeling of having 2 actions left this round and needing to take 3 to do everything I want, or even just enjoying the pretty pictures of my birds. Some of it, though, is also just the enjoyment of watching other player’s engines take flight. All-in-all I don’t feel like the pacing suffers despite the mostly-siloed turns, save at high player counts.
Is the game balanced such that it feels like a fair experience?
Until recently, I’d never won a game of Wingspan, so perhaps my opinion here should be taken with a grain of salt. The game is easier to win the more familiar you are with the birds–but there are so many that you can’t depend on any one strategy. And despite my setbacks, the ramp-up to competence at Wingspan is not a long one.
Absolutely. In the first three games of this I played with my wife, I won once, she won once, and we tied on the third. This is where the randomness and siloed player turns actually work to Wingspan’s advantage. There is enough unpredictability inherent to the game that you can only think so far ahead (which also helps keep the game engaging), and the absent player interference prevents the randomness from being exploited to completely shut everyone down. It is a race, but everyone is being thrown the same curves and you can’t run anyone off the track.
How often would you want to play this game?
Potentially once a game night. I did play it five times over the course of a four day writing retreat, if that tells you anything. I will play this game as often as other people will play it with me.
The sizable deck of bird cards, coupled with the random individual and group bonus objectives, keep this game’s replayability very high. I don’t think I would ever really turn down a chance to play Wingspan, which is something I can only say about a handful of games.
Is the game accessible?
Reading is required to succeed, primarily on the bird cards themselves. Great visuals act as reminders of what to do when and where.
I found the game very easy to learn and to teach, and have seen new players win their first match. The visual iconography is simple and clear, and the card layout conveys a lot of information without feeling cluttered.
Is the game good value?
Unequivocally yes. This one is a modern classic and should be a staple in most game libraries. If you don’t own it yet, put it on the list.
The game runs $60 at the time of this review, supports 1-5 players, with a typical playtime of about 1 hour and exceptional replayability. I would ballpark this at about $1.67 per player per hour, which is excellent value.
Je ne sais quoi?
The secret sauce. The “X-Factor.” The… “I don’t know what” that makes a hit a hit.
This game has it in spades. Put on some background music and pretend you’re outside. Or even better yet, play it outside. Just don’t roll your dice into the grass.
I have enjoyed every match of Wingspan that I’ve played, and, even when I’ve lost, come away with both a sense of accomplishment as well as the drive to try and do even better next time. Plus, this is a game about collecting birds, birds are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are the coolest.
Final Thoughts
According to the BoardGameGeek community, Wingspan is does great with 1-4 players and is best with free. It has a 40 to 70 minute playing time, and is best at ages ten and up. Even without the expansions, Wingspan is the complete package and deserves a spot on any gaming shelf.
Final Scores